These are just my opinions. I cannot promise that I will be perfect, but I can promise that I will seek to understand and illuminate whatever moves that the Giants make (my obsession and compulsion). I will share my love of baseball and my passion for the Giants. And I will try to teach, best that I can. Often, I tackle the prevailing mood among Giants fans and see if that is a correct stance, good or bad.

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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Your 2012 Giants: Epic Season Unfolding

What a season this has been. This sweep of the Dodgers with all the games being shutouts is just one of many unique occurrences for the Giants. Lots of once in a blue moon type of events keep on happening:

Barry Zito throws his first complete game shutout for the Giants and first since the 2003 season, nearly 9 years apart. He was only 25 that season.

Matt Cain pitches the first perfect no-hitter in Giants franchise history (128 years or 130 years, depending on how you want to look at it).

He also tied for the most strikeouts in a perfect game (with Koufax).

Gregor Blanco saves the no-hitter with a catch by a right-fielder who normally does not catch any ball in that part of the field, he was the first one over the past three seasons to catch a ball in part of the outfield. Baseball Info Solutions reported that of the 13 balls hit in AT&T to within 25 feet of that spot and with that approximate hang time, only 2 of them were caught - by the center fielder - and 5 became doubles and 5 became triples.

Also, Cain is the first pitcher to have a perfect no-hitter and a near perfect no-hitter (his one-hitter earlier in the season where he faced only one batter above the minimum) during the regular season (Halladay was the first to do it in a season, but his one walk one above minimum no-hitter happened in the playoffs).

On the bad side of the ledger, and not like it's been that long, but Tim Lincecum has never had either a start of a season like this nor as long a stretch of poor performances as his starts up until this start. I consider the before and after point to be after he gave up runners to the first six batters, after which he struck out the side. I would also add that despite the Giants ace performing worse than most team's #5 or #6 starter, the Giants not only were over .500 but challenging for the lead. Had he even been an average pitcher, the Giants would have a huge lead right now, instead of being tied with LA.

Not that this was a long time, but Brandon Belt never had a 15 game stretch in his career where his contact rate reached 80% until 7 games ago. And he almost reached it for a 20 game stretch 5 games ago.

And if you want to stretch it, what Ryan Vogelsong has done for us the past two seasons has to be one of the rarest events ever in the history of baseball. This season, he not only is showing that 2011 was not a fluke, but he's upping his game at the same time. I hope he's been keeping a lot of notes or maybe a journal/diary, his story would make a great book someday.

Another stretcher, but Madison Bumgarner finally hit his first homer in a game, after blasting pitch after pitch out in batting practice. And despite that happening just recently, he got his first homer of the season before Belt did, who has been a relatively prodigious homerun hitter the previous two seasons.

And, of course, the Giants sweep the Dodgers with a trio of shutouts, the first time in the history of their rivalry where the Giants did that, the first time that any San Francisco Giants team did that in a series (last Giants team did it to Phillies in 1954).

I'm sure that there were other odd-ball facts about this season that I cannot recall (I'm fighting a slight case of the stomach flu right now), so please add any you can think of in the comments section. Of course, this has no meaning for whether the Giants make the playoffs, let alone win the World Series, but I thought it was an interesting flavor to this season.

I, Me, Mine

Wow, this was easy and amazingly free. I am a big Giants fan and I hope to use my experience in business (MBA) and analytics (nearly 25 years) to bring up interesting facts to other Giants fans so that we may better understand the team's chances for success (or not) and hopefully share their insights with me. Please read my "OGC's Business Plan" link to better understand what my philosophy is for building a successful MLB team.
I want to teach and share my love of baseball and, in particular, my love for the San Francisco Giants. I will believe to my dying days that Bobby Bonds should be in Baseball’s Hall of Fame for being one of the few to bring the combination of power and speed to the game.
Why a blog? I love technology and society and just wanted to participate in this trend to see what it felt like. Plus I have a lot of questions I would like answered about the Giants and since I don't see anyone else tackling them, I've taken it upon myself to do it. Not that I'm that special, but just that I'm willing to put in the time to investigate them.